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When will the other chaussure drop? Now that America has gone French (and German and British) with universal healthcare, expect Washington to eventually propose a European-style, value-added consumption tax to pay for it — as well as the rest of the historic rise in federal spending. But U.S. voters are in a severe anti-tax mood. It might take another financial crisis to give politicians the will and hubris to ignore them.

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What a big relief! I’m not referring to the great stock market rally over the past year, but rather to Tuesday’s “Big Bang.” Particle physicists used the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva to simulate the event that might have occurred at the beginning of the universe. A few Doomsayers warned that the experiment could create a black hole that would suck us all into oblivion. Fortunately, they were wrong. However, even if a doomsday scenario is a small risk, shouldn’t all of us on the Planet Earth get to vote on whether the experiments should proceed? A spokesperson for the physicists said, “We are not doing anything that nature has not done before.” That’s not very reassuring. (Where did all the dinosaurs go?)

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Forget about being forced to buy health insurance. Aren’ t Americans pretty much forced by our complex tax code to buy tax prep software or see an accountant? That is a mandate, too, notes Howard Gleckman of TaxVox: